It HAD to have a human species. If it wasn't us it would be any other highly evolved humanoid. If it wasn't us it would be any other intelligent species making the same question.

Just like a planet with life HAD to exist. Even if you had just 0,0000000000001% of chance of existing a planet with life, with intelligent life, the universe is so huge (infinite) that all these just had to exist.

Because even 0,000000000000000000000001% is possible/highly probable in an infinite universe.

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Religion: The belief that an all powerful God or gods created the entire universe so that we tiny humans can be happy. And we also make war about it.

It HAD to have a human species. If it wasn't us it would be any other highly evolved humanoid. If it wasn't us it would be any other intelligent species making the same question.

That is speculation and I think it may either be a garbled attempt at affirming the consequent or an appeal to incredulity.

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Just like a planet with life HAD to exist. Even if you had just 0,0000000000001% of chance of existing a planet with life, with intelligent life, the universe is so huge (infinite) that all these just had to exist.

Because even 0,000000000000000000000001% is possible/highly probable in an infinite universe.

I do no think that is actually a fallacy. It would be like saying evolution is an appeal to science fallacy.

It is actually, this is actually a good example of it. The statement is that some concious being would have to have developed, and just because evolution happens doesn't mean that any specific trait will happen.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

It is actually, this is actually a good example of it. The statement is that some concious being would have to have developed, and just because evolution happens doesn't mean that any specific trait will happen.

It HAD to have a human species. If it wasn't us it would be any other highly evolved humanoid. If it wasn't us it would be any other intelligent species making the same question.

Where were these other highly intelligent and/or humanoid species for the vast, vast majority of Earth's history?

It's here now. It's Homo Sapiens. I didn't say humanoids had to exist since the beginning of Earth. I said it had to exist sometime, maybe even in another planet.

What I'm saying is this:In statistics the probability of something happening increases as you increase the population.

So, when you have an infinite population (the universe never ends), even if existing intelligent living beings is something HARD to occur, but in a infinite space spread through infinite time it becomes quite probable.

I'm willing to bet there are other intelligent species out there in the universe. But they may be so distant that it's impossible to reach them.

I'm also willing to bet they made up their own gods to explain everything too because that's what thinking societies do with the unknown.

We humans HAD to exist out of randomized chaos given an infinite time and infinite space.

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Religion: The belief that an all powerful God or gods created the entire universe so that we tiny humans can be happy. And we also make war about it.

That is not at all what you said in your original post. You said that "it" - meaning the Earth, in the context of this thread - "HAD" to have humans. Now, from a deterministic perspective, everything that has ever happened "had" to happen, but I doubt that's what you meant. If you were a visitor looking at the Earth 10 million years ago, would you have made the same judgment about it, regarding intelligent species?

It is actually, this is actually a good example of it. The statement is that some conscious being would have to have developed, and just because evolution happens doesn't mean that any specific trait will happen.

does that necessarily make it a fallacy?

Yes, remember the concept of a fallacy is a faulty connection between an agreed premise and a conclusion.

The problem problem is that we operate on fallacies all the time. The statement "There is No God" is a iteration of this fallacy. I see no God. There's no evidence of God. Therefore There is No God. While the evidence is so ponderous to conclude that the God of Christendom is fictional, we cannot state "There is No God" without committing this fallacy, despite it being obvious there isn't one.

However that is but a very tiny transgression of the fallacy. This one

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It HAD to have a human species. If it wasn't us it would be any other highly evolved humanoid.

Is a lot more clear. There is nothing in the TOE which states the development of sapience is inevitable. The Earth existed with loads of Floral and fauna for millions of years before the development of the great ape common ancestor. If conditions had wiped out that common ancestor, say an extreme drought(a not very uncommon occurrence), hominid would never have developed at that juncture of time. Lets say another pre sapient developed several million years later, only to me wiped out by a land slide exposing the micro-ecology to an previously unknown large predator(again a not terribly uncommon occurrence), and so on. The Earth could have lived to the end of its days without one full sapient walking on it though relatively common things happening.

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An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

I think we need to being with an analysis of the question -- is the world a worse place because humans are on it?

This seems to be a question of "pollution" and other "damage" that we humans are causing to the planet. But, are we? Certainly every animal on this planet pollutes to one degree or another. As pointed out above, elephants trample the grass and knock down trees. Elephants poop quite a bit and are not concerned at all where they do it. Their poop may get into their own water supply, causing disease for themselves and other animals around them.

Now, it is true that humans have evolved in a way where we have quite the mental ability to make tools. And, we use those tools to make other tools, to accomplish something. One of the tools that we have made is the drill bit and the oil drilling rig. We brought up that oil because we like to get from point A to point B (travel) in a reasonable amount of time. We didn't like our horses pooping all over the place (causing disease, no doubt), so we invented cars. We now can travel at 70 mph instead of 5 mph. We further invented airplanes go to 500 mph instead of 70 mph and be able to fly over the oceans (about 15 hours from LAX to HKG). We are still in a debate stage as to whether burning said fossil fuels are damaging the planet or not. The planet is a pretty amazing place. If the weather warms a bit, plants grow in areas where they previously didn't, creating more oxygen, which over time will cool the planet and balance things out. The temperature on the planet has been going up and down since the beginning of the planet. So, it is not really clear or proven that added CO2 is really making a difference, or even if it is, is something that the planet can't handle. The planet is a big place and we humans are a pretty small part of it.

In addition to using that oil for transportation, we also make plastic out of it and use it to create electricity. We also make copper wire by digging up the copper, then using energy to transform that copper into wires. We string those wires to bring electricity and Internet service to our homes. We use the plastic to make the case for our computers and other electronics. All so we can communicate with each other in forums such as this on the Internet (and, all those other things that we do on the Internet!)

We also use our oil energy to make toilets and copper pipes to bring water to our homes. With that, we build a sewer system and treat our sewage, instead of, like the elephant above, just poop anywhere that we feel like it. So, we are pretty nice to the planet ... which, is just a big rock in space. It doesn't really have any feelings. We collect and treat our sewage so that we control our own disease and that our poop (untreated) does not get back into our water supply, causing us illness. We do it to keep our environment safe and clean for ourselves and for the other animals, who, unlike us, can't really think through these issues (thus, like the elephant, poop anywhere, anytime).

However, the question itself is kind of moot. We are here, whether you believe that we got here as a result of evolution or creation (I personally believe the former). We don't have to unnecessarily damage the planet by dumping toxic chemicals into a river, but at the same time, like the elephants walking around looking for something to eat, we don't have to make our life like Little House on the Prairie either. We don't have to saddle up our horse to ride into town (or walk it). We can have a car, jump in that car and drive down to the supermarket to buy our food. And, the food didn't magically appear at the supermarket. It got there in 18 wheel semi-trucks, powered by, you guessed it, oil refined into diesel.

And, you know, we humans are a curious bunch. We like mental stimulation. So, we need our Internet (powered by oil -- I'm not going to surf the web just when it is daylight and I can get power from my solar panel). And, we like to go places and see new things. So, we drive to work to make money, so we can drive or fly somewhere on vacation. While there, we are going to stay in a hotel (built by man and machine, those machines using oil). We are going to eat while there, again requiring oil to get the food and the people to the location.

May I suggest that we consider if the world would be better off without viruses that kill us before we work on the question of should we kill ourselves off to make the planet a better place for the animals that remain. And, FYI, at least for my dog, I'm pretty sure she prefers the food I feed her to having to hunt for food -- even though she thinks she is a hunting dog.

It would seem up to this point that even though humans have done numerous things to hurt the environment such as oil spills, nuclear blasts, stripping forests, etc., the natural environment eventually recovers from it, though it may take many years and sometimes thousands of years to do so.

Look at Chernobyl and the the city of Pripyat. Even though humans cannot now inhabit this area today, we still see animals and vegetation growing in the area. (Here is a link to nice video to watch: http://mysmelly.com/Archive/AnimalsChernobylPripyat-Today/cgqpd/post.htm) Yes, radiation is very strong in the area, but still it does not appear to affect the natural environment too much. The real cost is to the humans that cannot exist in this area for a very long time to come. So humans have paid a price for the reactor explosion and have lost a very nice area of real estate to live on as a result.

Yes the world would have been better off in my opinion without us causing the damage in Chernobyl, but it also appears that humans, not the animals or the natural environment has paid the price for this intervention error on our part. This is not to say that there is not some damage to the environmental system and the animals in the area, but it seems from the various documentaries that I have watched, that animal and natural life seem to be recovering.

I feel as far as the world itself and the nature in it, it can and would do quite nicely without us. But since we are here it is our responsibility to care for what is also our home at this point in time. We also need to learn from our mistakes and try to be better next time, since so far we have been very lucky to have not caused so much damage that nature cannot recover from it eventually.

I found a baby bird not too long ago wandering in the parking lot of my local hardware store. Since it seemed lost and confused I put on some gloves and gently picked it up and placed in a soft area of grass to at least have a chance of surviving. As I drove away, I realized that no one would know what I did that day, but somehow I made a difference in the natural and cosmic way of things. As Marshall Brain states in his blog "Deciding to be better", I decided that day to be better.

This is my opinion on this subject.

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I am not asking what is truth, even though I seek it, I will know when truth is in front of me, when it is internally consistent, coherent with knowledge, congruent with like experience, useful for helping me organize my thinking, this is all I can ask in seeking the truth.

mandated NO medical treatment for kids less than 2 and adults older than 50. painkillers/marijuana would be ok (for the kids). btw. i'm over 50. offer $500 bucks to 18+year old males (without kids) if they undergo a vasectomy. inasmuch as i love my kids, when i was 18 i would have signed up right after midnight on my 18th.

when i was 28, i already had a kid and tried to get a vasectomy, but the idiot xtian doctor told me to go home and think about it overnight. of course, didn't go back. now i got two more kids. not saying i don't love them...

when i was 28, i already had a kid and tried to get a vasectomy, but the idiot xtian doctor told me to go home and think about it overnight. of course, didn't go back. now i got two more kids. not saying i don't love them...

then what are you saying? You love them, but wish you'd never had them? Why didn't you go back the next day?

I guess I find it difficult to understand someone wishing the children they love hadn't been born. Why do you wish they hadn't been born?

What makes the doctor an idiot? What reason did he suggest for waiting overnight? Was his suggestion linked in any way to his Christianity, did he say? Did you assume? Why is it relevant that he was a Christian? How did you know he was a Christian? Is it possible he deals with many patients asking him for a reversal? If you weer so easily distracted by 'shit', how much did you really want that vasectomy?

What makes the doctor an idiot? What reason did he suggest for waiting overnight? Was his suggestion linked in any way to his Christianity, did he say? Did you assume? Why is it relevant that he was a Christian? How did you know he was a Christian? Is it possible he deals with many patients asking him for a reversal? If you weer so easily distracted by 'shit', how much did you really want that vasectomy?

Sorry to interrogate. I just find this very strange.

specifically told him, snip/snap, all business. says as a xtian as well as his policy, he won't vasectomize until i think about it. makes him an idiot for wasting my time. if he didn't say he was an xtian, he would just be a generic idiot and if i posted that in here......

a reversal is business. spoke to other urologists and they don't care.

who said i was distracted? are you a lawyer? shit don't happen to you? in the vernacular, means events unfold. you want me to measure how much i wanted it? a bunch?

I wonder if it's even possible to turn up at a urologist and get the snip that same day. I doubt it. They need to assess general health and explain the procedure. Had you made it clear when making the appointment that you wanted the snip that day? Was anything communicated to you about that being not possible at the time you made the appointment?

The Christian thing really does confuse me. Did he elaborate as to what aspect of his faith caused him concern in performing a vasectomy on one day but not the next?